Technical Consultant

The Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality is a regional organization dedicated to encouraging and support sexual health, sexuality gender and bodily rights movements in the Middle East and North Africa through capacity building, knowledge production, protection and advocacy. Established in 2009, AFE has been a driver of LGBTIQ+ rights in the MENA region supporting national organizations and local, regional and global advocacy to improve the quality of life of marginalized communities in the MENA region. 

Earlier this year a series of claims of misconduct circulated on social media against AFE’s senior management. The Board of Trustees of AFE hired two independent consultants to carry out an investigation. Following the delivery of the investigation report to the Board of Trustees, multiple conversations took place between the Board and AFE’s senior management, eventually leading to the resignation of the Board.

Following this incident, AFE’s Executive Director stepped away from the organization, and the AFE team consulted with partner organizations and donors to recruit an independent consultant to support in identifying gaps and challenges in the governance of AFE and support in creating an accountable and transparent way to elect a transitional board.

Specific Objectives:

The scope of work for the Consultant will include:

• Review the bylaws, governance manual, internal regulations (including Code of Ethics) and policy documents and define a clear authority matrix that includes the various boards at AFE, their roles and reporting models in line with AFE’s culture of inclusive and transparent decision–making and in consultation with AFE’s partners and other stakeholders.  
• to develop
• Design the transitional Board of Trustees’ selection process, develop a clear description how the position of the Transitional Board is in relation to the legal board/administrative board, and oversee its implementation to ensure the new Board of Trustees is selected in a transparent way. This transitional Board will be accountable for its work and that of AFE. This process will include the transition and handing over to the elected board once all programs have established their Technical Boards.
• Open a call for nomination for the Board of Trustees and oversee the process, this will include setting a selection criteria and scoring, invite the partners and donors to
  endorse individuals they think would fit the position, support the scoring and selection of the applicants, publish the results online and to the partners.
• Develop recommendations for human resource management at AFE, including specific recommendations for staff evaluation and procedures for filling temporary and new vacancies.

Key outputs:

• Provide recommendations for editing AFE’s governance manual, policy manuals and bylaws.
• Develop a clearly described governance structure as a key deliverable, ensuring a well described roles and responsibilities on supervision, management and execution.
• Manage the appointment of the different boards at AFE and provide recommendations for editing their terms of reference, election procedures and structures and relations to AFE staff, including a new proposed governance chart.
• Design and implement a transparent process to create a transitional Board of Trustees to oversee AFE in the coming period. Ensure a new transitional Board of Trustees is in place and operational.
• Provide the transitional Board of Trustees recommendations for human resource management procedures, specific recommendations for staff evaluation, procedures for filling temporary and new vacancies and recommendations for evaluating AFE’s Executive Director and developing procedures for filling the Executive Director role.
• Provide consultation with partners and donors.
• Conduct a review of AFE’s current grievance procedure and provide recommendations to the Board on procedures to ensure that all stakeholders (internal and external) are able to submit grievances and feedback and are duly responded to by the Board.  
• Make all outputs available to AFE’s staff, transitional and future Boards of Trustees, and institutional donors and other partners as necessary.

Time Span & Budget

This assignment is expected to be carried out over 90 working days.

Budget: 12,000$  

6.         Institutional Arrangements

The Consultant will coordinate at the beginning of the process with the AFE Associate and Program Directors with oversight from FrontlineAIDS

7.         Expertise

a)         Academic Qualifications

At least a master’s degree in a relevant field in the area of governance, organizational development, strategic planning, public policy, and/or organizational management.

Holders of bachelor degrees may apply with an additional 5 years of experience required.

b)         Experience

•          At least ten years professional experience in governance and organizational management.

•          For non-Masters degree holders, fifteen years of experience in governance and organizational management requires.  

•          Demonstrated experience developing governance systems, conflict resolution and oversight   management.

• Experience in engaging senior level staff in advising on organisational development best practices, including knowledge-sharing and managing relationships.
• Experience delivering capacity assessments, follow-up, planning and documenting impact.

• Experience working with marginalized populations.

c)         Skills and Competencies:

• Excellent inter-personal skills and ability to relate with partners from different cultural backgrounds

• Flexibility to work in a dynamic environment and to multi-task

• Ability to build strong and credible relationships with partners and wider stakeholders and donors
• Excellent interpersonal skills, demonstrating high levels of personal integrity and professional credibility.
• Capacity to listen and think strategically on solutions to overcome organisational development issues and exploit organisational strengths
• High level of computer literacy (primarily in Microsoft Office packages)